Bridgegate editors bury an elaborate Christie cover-up

Today is a thoroughly miserable day to be driving around Bergen County.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If the miserable, sunless weather doesn't get you down, The Record's whitewash of a legislative panel's report on Governor Christie and Bridgegate is certain to do the trick.

"Cover-up" was the word used by some media outlets to describe the report's conclusions, including WNYC-FM.

But you would have to read far into today's upbeat Page 1 "ANALYSIS," a Charles Stile column and an editorial (A-9) to understand just how far Governor Christie, his aides and his cronies went to cover up the real purpose of the George Washington Bridge lane closures -- political payback.

When the Woodland Park daily's editors and reporters sound like the GOP bully's own spin doctors, you know journalistic principals have been compromised.

Wrong-way Boburg

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg claims in his first paragraph today that the Legislature's Bridgegate report concluded Governor Christie didn't know of the scheme (A-1), but that contradicts what he reported on Friday.

The state legislative committee investigating the September 2013 gridlock in Fort Lee said there was "no conclusive evidence" as to whether Christie "was or was not" aware of the closures or involved in directing them, according to Boburg's Page 1 story on Friday.

And Boburg's lead paragraph today mentions "two reports," a reference to the whitewash by Christie's own lawyers, including Randy Mastro, who soaked taxpayers by submitting a request for $7.2 million in legal fees.

Treating the credibility of the two reports equally completely violates the standards of objective journalism.

Indeed, a gullible Boburg quoted Mastro on Friday's Page 1 claiming that "with this [legislative] inquiry behind it [sic], the governor and his office can focus on what they do best -- serving the public interest."

At the moment Mastro's press release went out, Christie was thousands of miles away in Canada, pursing his White House dreams. 

So much for "serving the public interest."

Editorial trickery

Stile, one of the paper's biggest Christie boosters, claims in his first paragraph the latest report "may help [the governor] in his yearlong quest for rehabilitation" (A-1).

The headlines on today's editorial are even more bewildering (A-9):

No involvement

GWB panel implicates only Christie aides

Really? 

Today, none other than Boburg reports "the legislative report said Christie and an aide had deleted 12 text messages they exchanged during damaging testimony by Port Authority officials" (A-6).

And readers have to question the motives of Boburg and his editors to bury the lead in the last paragraph of his so-called Analysis, quoting a spokesman for the Democratic National Commitee:

"Some of Christie's closest aides and allies put safety at risk, seemingly to exact petty political revenge, and in the aftermath, they lied about it. That, in itself, is inexcusable conduct coming from the administration of someone who wants to be president of the United States" (A-6).

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Renewing the ugly battle with racism in Englewood

In what many commuters know as the "Passover Effect," there were plenty of seats available on NJ Transit trains to and from the city on Friday, and traffic in the region was mercifully light. Many commuters left the day before to celebrate the holiday with relatives out of state or took a long weekend. Passover begins at sundown Monday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front page of The Record today and Friday appeared to carry big local news for a change.

Editor Marty Gottlieb called for a large, black headline today to announce "the largest toxic cleanup in U.S. history," but downplayed that no part of the Passaic River in Bergen or Passaic counties is included (A-1).

On Friday, The Record announced that Hackensack had settled the last civil-rights lawsuit against Ken Zisa, the family's rotten apple, who stank up City Hall during his years as police chief and state assemblyman (A-1).

The cost to the city and taxpayers -- in legal fees and settlements -- was put at "more than $8 million," but the story doesn't say how much of that was covered by insurance.

More racism?

Still, the story that jumped out at me appeared on Friday's Local front, where Englewood's ugly school-desegregation battle was back in the news (L-1).

The small city has been struggling with segregated schools for nearly 30 years, and in 2002, Bergen County started a rigorous Academies program at Dwight Morrow High School to draw white students from outside Englewood.

But the proposal that is being denounced by some parents is to have "mostly minority Dwight Morrow students and more diverse Academies students attend classes in the same buildings" [italics added]."

Low-grade fever

The story doesn't raise racism as the possible cause of the opposition. 

In fact, the story reports the concern is "low academic achievement," as if poor grades are catching, like a cold.

Apparently, no effort is being made to integrate the lower grades in Englewood, which the Borg publishing family called home for many years, choosing, of course, to pay for private schools.

More screw-ups

Friday's paper also was noteworthy for two lengthy corrections on A-2, and an embarrassing production error on A-5, involving a broken photo caption in the story on the 50th anniversary celebration of the Civil Rights Act.

Maybe it's time for a typo in the paycheck of Production Editor Liz Houlton, who is paid six figures, despite all of the errors she and her staff miss.

Praise for Axia

In Friday's Better Living entertainment tabloid, Staff Writer Elisa Ung lavishes 3 stars (Excellent) on Axia Taverna in Tenafly, an expensive Greek restaurant that opened in 2006 (BL-18).

What did she wait eight years to visit the place?

Still, in her usual "let them eat cake" attitude, there is little about the origin of the food or how it was raised or grown.

"Though not cheap, you get quality for your money," the restaurant reviewer assures readers in the data box.

The fat lamb rib chops are from Australia and cost an astounding $40, but she doesn't say whether they are grass fed and free of antibiotics. Ditto for the Colorado loin chops.

A seafood clay pot ($26) apparently contained a single "pristine scallop."

And her description of the abysmally poor service during one of her visits, and the burned top of that seafood clay pot, makes you wonder why she didn't award Axia two and a half stars.

Inside journalism

Today, the paper pats itself on the back for winning a George Polk Award for its coverage of the political payback scandal involving lane closures at the George Washington Bridge (A-7).

Someone should buy a tie for Port Authority reporter Shawn Boburg, who looks like he just climbed out of bed for the photo on A-7.

I don't know who George Polk was, but his journalism prize is as flawed as all of the others, which should be awarded for a body of work, not just one series of stories.

For example, Boburg has had blinders on in his coverage of the Port Authority, ignoring the bistate agency's poor job of expanding mass transit and easing nightmarish traffic congestion.

Which reminds me that the silly wire service story announcing the Polk Awards claims two reporters who broke the Edward Snowden story weren't arrested at Kennedy International Airport, as feared.

But, the story said, "they were instead confronted by reporters and photographers before fighting through traffic" to receive the award in the city.

Of course, that usually is the case, but Friday was one of the lightest traffic days of the year, as I found out on two car trips, one to Manhattan and back, and the other to LaGuardia Airport.

Today's confection

The Record and Staff Writer Jay Levin also pat themselves on the back today for helping the Mortgage Apple Cake baker save her Teaneck home from foreclosure (L-1).

Levin's 2009 story about Angela Logan, based on a tip from a "mutual Teaneck friend," attracted hundreds of orders for her cakes, as he reports today in a story about a TV film airing on April 20.

That puts the spotlight on the Woodland Park daily's coverage of the foreclosure crisis in New Jersey, and whether the paper has fully exposed the roles of banks, real estate agents and Governor Christie.

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Cichowski, Kelly and Ervolino -- take a hint

Can you guess the location of this photo in Bergen County, near Hackensack?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The wrong columnist announced his retirement in The Record's thin Sunday edition today.

Kevin DeMarrais, the paper's lone voice for the consumer, is bowing out after 20 years, without saying whether the Your Money's Worth column will be written by someone else (B-1).

Of course, DeMarrais was the least offensive of The Record's veteran, white-male news columnists.

Readers would love to see last columns from John Cichowski, the error-prone Road Warrior; Mike Kelly, the reporter who pushes words around and rarely ventures a strong opinion; and Bill Ervolino, whose funny stand-up routine falls flat on the printed page.

DeMarrais pats himself on the back, and thanks "senior management and editors" for their support, "even when I got advertisers upset."

But he doesn't mention his failures, including never listing organic and naturally raised food in his monthly survey of supermarket prices.

Nor does he remind readers he went to bat for a businesswoman, without telling readers she had sold a private jet to North Jersey Media Group Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg and his best friend, real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson.

Today's paper

If you count the story that leads the paper today and opinion columns, nearly three full pages of the Sunday edition are devoted to analyzing Governor Christie's actions in the George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee (A-1 and O-1).

Did anyone get through the Page 1 "ANALYSIS" of "key words" in the 344-page report that Christie commissioned at taxpayers' expense -- a report that has been denounced as a self-serving whitewash?

Editor Marty Gottlieb thinks readers have all the time in the world to plow through stories and columns that are top-heavy with background and bury the "nut graf" -- the hard-hitting conclusion or opinion.

Try not to fall asleep reading the "nut graf" of today's long and winding piece at the top of A-1:

"The report prepared by lead attorney Randy Mastro of Gibson Dunn appears to diverge from those [investigative] standards in several ways, according to an analysis by The Record and interviews with experienced investigators."

Three reporters and an unknown number of editors and graphic artists worked on this snorefest, which goes a long way toward explaining why young people don't read newspapers anymore.

Local-news follies

Readers looking for local news today strike out, thanks to Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and writers of the photo captions.

On the Local front, none of the five donors to the Pascack Valley Meals on Wheels are identified in the caption (L-1).

On L-3, a photo caption blames a power outage in Leonia on a "primary splice fail" that caused smoke and a small explosion.

The section includes municipal news from Kinnelon and West Milford, but nothing from Teaneck or Hackensack.

Restaurant propaganda

On the Better Living cover, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung is trying to make us believe none of her readers are upset about ever-higher prices, especially $9 or $10 for a single glass of wine, or a tipping system that puts the burden on the customer to provide servers with a living wage (BL-1).

Second look

A story on moving Englewood's Dwight Morrow High School "toward full integration" makes no mention of doing the same at the city's segregated elementary and middle schools (Friday's Local front).

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Another sad day for New Jersey journalism

Will The Record's coverage of the Christie administration's politically inspired George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee, above, win the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize, the highest achievement in journalism? Prizewinners and nominated finalists will be announced April 14 at Columbia University in Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Newspaper veterans rubbed their tired eyes today as they read of more drastic cuts in the news-gathering staff at The Star-Ledger, the onetime behemoth that once cast a shadow on The Record and every other newspaper in New Jersey. 

The Woodland Park daily is reporting that 40 more jobs will be lost in The Star-Ledger's non-unionized newsroom, cutting the staff to 116, down from a high of 350 before the first buyouts in 2008 (A-1 and A-3).

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Star-Ledger, hit by the newspaper industry's nationwide drop in readership and advertising, claims a circulation of 167,600 daily, compared to 473,000 in 1993.

Outsourcing

A total of 306 will be laid off at The Star-Ledger and other daily and weekly papers owned by Advance Publications Inc. in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and at the company's NJ.com Web site.

Advance plans to create a new company based in Woodbridge that will provide advertising, marketing and news content to The Star-Ledger, its other newspapers and its Web site.

Outsourcing news gathering is sort of like a school board outsourcing janitorial services: 

Both deal with a lot of shit. At New Jersey newspapers, that takes the form of bullshit from Chris Christie, the GOP monster who has turned out to be state's worst governor.

Second thoughts

The Star-Ledger has done a better job than most of seeing through Christie's bluster, and in February, the paper called its endorsement of his reelection "regrettable."

"...Yes, we blew this one," wrote Tom Moran, the former Record staffer who is now on The Star-Ledger's editorial board, mentioning both the Bridgegate and Sandy aid debacles.

The Record's story today is strangely silent on how the flagship North Jersey Media Group daily has weathered the downturn in the industry.

The Woodland Park daily has been hiding its circulation decline by issuing numbers that include the Herald News, which is called an "edition" of The Record.

After a major downsizing in 2008 and the abandonment of its Hackensack headquarters in 2009, many new reporters have been added, likely at much lower salaries than newsroom veterans.

But the merger of the NJMG daily papers' newsroom staffs in Woodland Park has resulted in a decline in the quality and quantity of local news; poor writing and editing, and a dramatic increase in errors. 

Page 1 profiles

Three of today's Page 1 stories read like profiles:

Virginia Rohan's column on David Letterman, who announced his retirement from late-night TV; a story on Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, called "a mystery" in the headline; and an obituary for Vincent Lamberti, a Lever Bros. researcher who is called the "father of Dove soap," a synthetic compound (A-1).

I just skimmed the headlines and first few paragraphs of the column about Letterman, who will be missed by insomniacs, drunks who live in bars and The Record's long-suffering news and copy editors, who work late into the night putting out the error-filled paper.

Ditto for the long, boring story on Guadagno, a non-entity who was chosen as a running mate by Christie because she was a woman, had a pulse and wouldn't dare challenge the governor in anything.

Christie was already henpecked by his overweight wife, who later got him to kill the Hudson River rail tunnels because the connection to the New York City subway was too far for her to walk.

But I read and enjoyed every word of the Lamberti obituary, saying to myself, Now, that is a life well-lived, something I'm sure I will never say about Letterman, Christie or Guadagno. 

Hackensack news

The Record's Local section today has a follow-up on Polifly Towing, a Hackensack company that has been using city owned land rent free, but has been paid $20,613 for towing illegally parked vehicles in the past three years (L-1).

The Record has had nothing so far on whether there is a school-board election this month.

But today's edition of the weekly Hackensack Chronicle reports the school board has presented a proposed 2014-15 operating budget that raises taxes $116 for a home assessed at $240,329.

Neither paper has reported the ups and downs of the elevator at Hackensack High School, where the cafeteria is in the basement, and classes are held on upper floors.

The elevator was out of service for more than two months, until a new part was fabricated, but it continues to break down periodically, stranding disabled students and an athlete recovering from a broken leg. 

Dog food

Is any reader eager to dine at The Dog & Cask in Rochelle Park, where a "pathetic" 5.5-ounce burger was "cooked into oblivion," the toast with charcuterie was burnt, and cod and pasta were oversalted (BL-16)?

Elisa Ung, the dessert-obsessed reviewer, even hated three of the four artery clogging treats she sampled. 

The poorly edited review describes the pub as "upscale ... with food that veers more fine dining," but a word is missing (data box on BL-16).

Leave it to Ung to find awful places to eat, then neglect to tell readers whether any of the meat served is grass-fed or raised naturally.

The Dog & Cask replaces Bistro 55, where former Food Editor Bill Pitcher was given a send-off several years ago.

If you eat at the new place now, good luck surviving the drunks in the parking lot or the ones racing by on Route 17.

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Our bankrupt state, towns can't fix potholes

All of the pothole photos on today's post were taken on Tuesday on one block of Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, above and below. Drivers who took the George Washington Bridge exit for the Palisades Interstate Parkway on Tuesday encountered a minefield of potholes between the bridge and Exit 1 in Englewood Cliffs that were so numerous, they could not steer around them.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Our state and our towns appear to be so broke they cannot afford to fix potholes -- nasty reminders of the bitter winter we barely survived.

After a flurry of columns and stories, The Record has been ignoring the increasing number of potholes and the rising chorus of curses from drivers, as well as the lack of repairs.

Up close and personal on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack.

The front page today carries another story on the state's severe financial problems under Governor Christie, the GOP bully who refuses to raise taxes on millionaires and throws away hundreds of millions more on tax breaks for wealthy business owners (A-1).

Christie also has refused to raise the low gasoline tax, which could revive the bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund, which is used to repair potholes on Route 4, Route 17 and other state highways.

Zisa Family Memorial Potholes on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, above and below. Members of the current City Council argue they can't afford fix streets because of all of the financial problems caused by the former administration, allied with the Zisas, who ruled Hackensack for decades. Those problems range from millions of dollars lost because bills were never sent out to many more millions of dollars spent to defend and settle lawsuits against Ken Zisa, the former police chief who was convicted of official misconduct and insurance fraud.

Today's paper

President Obama says 7.1 million Americans signed up for health coverage, and that "doesn't include enrollments through 14 state exchanges or people who started the process and weren't able to finish because of technical problems," according to today's Page 1 story.

"The Affordable Health Care Act is here to stay," Obama said.

Let's hope The Record's negative coverage isn't here to stay.

The Woodland Park daily and its medical writers virtually ignored any success stories, including reporting on people who saved money by signing up for federal health care.

The federal program is expected to lower health-care costs, as well as depress the profits of the insurance companies who have donated millions of dollars to the GOP's disinformation and repeal campaign.

Exploding cars

Readers who remember exploding Ford Pintos and Crown Victoria Police Interceptors or Toyota vehicles that accelerated out of control aren't surprised by today's front-page report on cost-cutting at General Motors that killed at least 13 people (A-1).

On A-2 today, the editors correct two of the many reporting, grammatical and other screw-ups that appeared in the paper recently.

Bridgegate costs

A story on A-3 reports state officials don't know how much they will be billed for the self-serving whitewash Governor Christie commissioned to clear him of wrongdoing in the George Washington Bridge lane closures.

Last week, news stories and columns put the damage to taxpayers at $1 million or more. What were they based on?

Christie was skewered on the Bridgegate scandal and his weight at a 90th-birthday roast of Brendan Byrne, a former governor (A-3). 

Of course, as with anything involving Christie, the joke is really on middle-class taxpayers, especially those who gave him a second term in November.

Local news?

On the Local front, an accident photo carries a caption that is unusually complete, including the name of a driver killed by a tractor-trailer on the New Jersey Turnpike (L-1).

But Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza continues to rely too heavily on police and court news to flesh out his thin local-news report.

He still hasn't answered a nagging question on the mind of residents:

Why is no one fixing thousands of annoying and dangerous potholes? 

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Another crappy column from a burned-out reporter

In Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and many other towns, as well as on state highways, hundreds of potholes like this one remain unfilled, and pose an obstacle course for drivers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

No. This post isn't about Staff Writer John Cichowski, whose Road Warrior column is known for hype, exaggeration and numerous inaccuracies, which may be caused by the aging reporter's confused state of mind.

This is about Mike Kelly, whose Page 1 column today in The Record is another in a series of unfocused, rambling pieces that is completely devoid of a point of view.

Kelly presents the usual set of observers and experts, publishes the usual quotes and calls it a day. 

Yet, readers have to look at his thumbnail photo's shit-eating grin, as if the reporter knows he is getting away with more crappy writing and reporting.

This "column" is indistinguishable from a news story (A-1).

Sloppy reporting

And he can't even manage to accurately quote the infamous e-mail that blew open the investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closures, known far and wide as Bridegate, a word The Record refuses to use.

Kelly says Bridget Anne Kelly "suggested 'some traffic problems in Fort Lee.'"

But Kelly, who was Governor Christie's deputy chief of staff, didn't "suggest" anything.

In an e-mail to David Wildstein, who was Christie's crony on the Port Authority, she called for the lane closures in no uncertain terms:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Blame game

The report on the "internal" review commissioned by Christie places the blame for the lane closures on Bridget Kelly and Wildstein, and clears the GOP bully.

But it was met with widespread skepticism, and denounced as little more than a self-serving whitewash.

Today -- a week after the report was leaked to The New York Times -- Kelly the reporter cites a "debate" over descriptions of the former aide's personal life and her alleged relationship with Christie's campaign manager. 

Is anyone but Mike Kelly debating this? Isn't the real debate over whether Christie has lied about his knowledge and role in the lane closures from the beginning?

And if Mike Kelly is offended by the report's use of personal details, why does he repeat them in his column?

And why doesn't he act like a real journalist and call for Christie lawyer Randy Mastro to go before an ethics panel for dragging Bridget Kelly's personal life through the mud?

No news today

I know Sundays are "slow news days" and Monday's front page is usually filled with scene-setters and other canned copy.

But, really, are trimming trees around power lines so controversial that they are on the front page today (A-1)?

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and the other supremely lazy local-news editors have these words on a save/get key:

"No other information was available."

Those words appear today in a photo caption on a fatal accident "early Sunday" on New Bridge Road in Teaneck (L-1).

The 29-year-old driver was killed, but The Record doesn't identify him or say whether he was speeding.

If Teaneck police wouldn't release the information, shouldn't the editors address that and not constantly cheat readers?

Deliberate distortion

In his Road Warrior column last Wednesday, Cichowski focused on a disabled man who lived in Union Township, and claimed he could be served by a proposed car service to get to his doctor in Hackensack.

But the man is in his 50s, and would be ineligible to use the service, which is for people 60 years old and older, according to a concerned reader.

This was no innocent oversight by Cichowski. 

It was deliberate distortion accomplished by omitting from the column both the man's age and the minimum age of people who could use the proposed service.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior gives false hope to disabled

See previous post

on Hackensack's new train shelter

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Even if no crime, it's time for Christie to bow out

Federal and state investigators are trying to determine if a crime was committed when members of Governor Christie's inner circle closed two of three access lanes to the upper level tollbooths of the George Washington Bridge, above, causing four days of gridlock in Democratic Fort Lee, The Record reports today.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Can we really believe a governor who claims he was kept out of the loop when his lieutenant governor, members of his inner circle in Trenton and his Port Authority cronies engaged in a pattern of political retribution against Democrats who didn't support him (The Record's A-1 today)?

Do we really want a governor who has been unable to deliver federal aid to shore residents who were driven from their homes by Superstorm Sandy nearly 17 months ago (A-3)?

Even if no federal or state crime was committed when lane closures caused four days of gridlock at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge, Governor Christie shouldn't survive the prolonged crisis over the Bridgegate scandal.

Narrow focus

Today's Page 1 story by Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, one of the paper's stars, focuses narrowly on what laws may have been broken by all of the political machinations in the Governor's Office and at the Port Authority, the bi-state transportation agency and patronage mill.

Akin omits any discussion of how the majority of state residents have lost confidence in their governor, and would like to see him resign. 

Drugs and guns

Is there a story today about the full-page ad from the Bergen County prosecutor, warning residents that he won't hesitate to go after anyone who gives even one Oxycodone pill to a friend of a friend with a drug problem (A-7)?

A letter to the editor today states clearly how some gun-rights advocates believe local police cannot protect them from crime (A-10). 

"We are in a war," claims Don White of tiny Prospect Park, which shares a border with Paterson, the city that is often demonized by The Record as a drug bazaar.

More flawed reporting

On the Local front today, Road Warrior John Cichowski wrings his hands over the failure of a non-profit car service that could help "non-driving seniors and ambulatory disabled people navigate inexpensively" (L-1).

Of course, Cichowski makes the problem even more dramatic by omitting any mention of NJ Transit's Access Link service, which takes thousands of people to supermarkets, and to and from doctors and hospitals every month.

In his last paragraph, the confused reporter asks "how many fewer deaths, injuries and crashes" would there be "if seniors and disabled people had convenient, inexpensive travel options"?

But they already have that with NJ Transit's Access Link minibuses. 

This story smells

Another L-1 story says Hackensack residents complained that uncollected trash "attracted vermin and gave off a bad smell in the sweltering heat" of summer.

So, why did city officials start twice-a-week pickup on March 17, when it is still wintry, and ignore how a recycling-education campaign and compost pickups could have accomplished the same goals?

Gondolas on River Street?

A Business page story finally identifies multimillionaire developer Fred Daibes as a partner in a deal to buy The Record's former headquarters on about 20 acres of land along River Street in Hackensack (L-8).

The story doesn't say whether Daibes and partner James Demetrakis plan to provide gondolas to residents of the luxury apartments they intend to build in one of the city's worst flood zones.

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Editors resume their public relations for Christie

In Fort Lee, construction work is under way on a site across Park Avenue from the 47-story residential tower that is visible from almost everywhere in the borough, above and below. There is no indication whether a second residential tower like the first is going up at the site, which also is across the street from the George Washington Bridge local access lanes that are at the center of the Bridgegate political-retribution scandal.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

All the signs are there that The Record's editors, columnists and reporters are resuming their work of repairing Governor Christie's battered image.

It isn't news that a prominent Republican lawyer Christie hired to conduct an "internal" investigation, and the attorney's staff, which has ties to the governor, may have cleared him, but it is all over Page 1 today.

And what did readers turned off by Charles Stile's political columns do to deserve two "he's-not-as-bad-as-he-seems" columns on the front page today and Monday?

So far, the internal probe has cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

It's hard to understand how the editors and Christie's allies see such positive signs when members of the governor's inner-circle continue to stonewall on turning documents over to the state Legislature's Bridgegate investigative committee (A-6).

Men are animals

If you classify this latest flurry of stories about the GOP bully as "animal news," the Woodland Park daily seems to be devoting a lot of space lately to four-legged species.

Witness Sunday's front page, where a so-called debate over a pro athlete's dog-fighting conviction played out.

Today, the front of Local and L-3 are dominated by tear-jerking horse and dog rescue stories.

I guess nothing was going on in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns that are missing from today's Local section, which is put out by editors who some would call "horse's asses."

Tesla rescue?

The first Business page today reports a Bergen County legislator wants to make it legal for Tesla to sell its revolutionary electric car directly to New Jersey consumers (L-7).

The company's CEO says Christie and New Jersey auto dealers made a "backroom deal" to stop Tesla from selling its Model S premium sedan from Paramus and Short Hills showrooms.

"The governor talks a big game about attracting innovative businesses to the state, but this move does the exact opposite," says Assemblyman Timothy Eustace, D-Paramus, sponsor of a bill to amend the restrictive law.

The only editorial comment on the controversy came from freelance cartoonist Margulies on Sunday's O-2, which showed Christie telling a kid at a 5-cents lemonade stand he can't sell directly and has to go through "a beverage dealer." 

Funeral home cops

Monday's Page 1 story on retired police officers who work at North Jersey funeral homes may help rehabilitate their image, which the paper savaged in a series of stories on high salaries and pensions when Francis "Frank" Scandale was running the newsroom.

The paper argued that high teacher and police salaries were the chief cause of municipalities' financial problems.

But why does Monday's story have two photos of the same man, Sal Arena, who was a captain on the Pompton Lakes force?

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Are editors doing enough to stop heroin deaths?

Have you seen any pothole-filling crews in Hackensack?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Newspaper readers are accustomed to seeing light, bright and tragic stories on the same front page.

But Page 1 of The Record today sets a new low, devoting more space to a new Jets quarterback than to the rising number of heroin deaths in Bergen County (A-1).

Couldn't Editor Marty Gottlieb find room in today's thin Sunday edition for a sidebar on whether customs officials, state lawmakers, local police, parents and the media are doing enough to stop drug overdoses?

Deep in the text on the continuation page (A-8), where Caitlin Reiter's heroin addiction and tragic death are described, a throwaway line continues the paper's one-dimensional portrayal of Paterson as a drug bazaar.

Second thoughts

Well, at least the morons in the Woodland Park newsroom are having second thoughts about their light treatment of the theft of $460,000 in parking-meter revenue in Ridgewood (A-1 and L-1).

"Questions are being raised" about the plea deal with a former village employee who is "likely to be spared any jail time," The Record reports today, quoting famed defense attorney Frank P. Lucianna and Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn.

Thursday's front-page story referred to admitted thief Thomas Rica as a "coin collector," and compared the weight of the stolen quarters to nine Honda Civics.

Joke is on voters

A third front-page story today reports on all of the jokes about Governor Christie in the wake of the politically motivated George Washington Bridge lane closures, resulting in four days of gridlock in Democratic Fort Lee last September (A-1).

Of course, the joke is on readers and voters who were let down by the media, which didn't uncover the scandal before the GOP bully was elected to a second term in November, in what was the lowest turnout ever for a gubernatorial election.

More road kill

Gottlieb and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza continue to treat readers with contempt by publishing Staff Writer John Cichowski, the confused reporter behind the Road Warrior column.

Today's rambling discussion of mass transit -- from buses to trains to ferries -- makes flawed comparisons and shows Cichowski's ignorance about service problems he has rarely addressed in more than a decade (L-1).

Reporting that NJ Transit diverted nearly 700 bus riders caught in a massive traffic jam to a trans-Hudson ferry, Cichowski wondered whether the agency was "responding to withering customer complaints" about delays at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

But the ferry diversion was in the morning; the long lines at the PABT are in the afternoon and evening, so there is no way they are related.

Water on brain

The idiot also reports that paying private ferry services to carry bus riders is "certainly cheaper" than expanding rail service by building new rail tunnels under the Hudson, a project killed by Christie in 2011.

But Cichowski doesn't seem to know Amtrak, the federal passenger railroad corporation, is completing the tunnel project, which won't increase bus capacity into the city.

Only another express bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel can do that.

Cichowski's previous column also was confusing, and focused on highway lighting, not poorly lighted streets where pedestrians are killed routinely by drivers who get away with murder by claiming, I didn't see him.

Cursing the Road Warrior's dim bulb


Celebrating hard work

For a change, the featured obituary on the front of Local today is about an ordinary, previously unsung African-American woman:

Levonia Chaney, who died this month at 104, was the great-granddaughter of a slave who worked as a seamstress and lived in Hackensack, where she and her husband, a porter, put two sons through medical school and saw their daughter become a music teacher (L-1). 

An editorial today questions the lack of security at the new World Trade Center, where a New Jersey teenager was able to climb up to the iconic building's antenna mast (O-2).

Good for Justin Casquejo of Weehawken. Too bad he or someone like him didn't do the same at the mall in Short Hills, where a young lawyer was murdered, or Westfield Garden State Plaza, the Paramus shopping center invaded by a gunman who fired random shots before committing suicide.

More Ung nonsense

If you believe Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, restaurant goers have no "pet peeves" concerning the low quality of the food they are served or the ridiculously high prices for a glass of wine (BL-1).

The problem may be that she doesn't have to pay for her meals; the paper's expense account has completely spoiled her.

On Friday, The New York Times gave a rating "just shy of excellent" -- its top endorsement in New Jersey -- to Terre a Terre in Carlstadt, where Ung claimed she was served seafood that "smelled and tasted past their prime."

Contrast The Times' review to Ung's lukewarm appraisal:

New American amid the salt hay

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